New Round Boosts Lyft Valuation to $15B, But Uber Still Looms Large

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Ridesharing service Lyft has upped its valuation by about $3.5 billion after adding a $600 million round of funding, which the company said Wednesday morning was led by previous investor Fidelity Management & Research.

The new funding round gives Lyft a $15.1 billion post-money valuation, the company said in a blog post. That’s up from an $11.5 billion valuation the company said it had after it announced in December 2017 it would add another $500 million on top of its recent $1 billion financing round. (Fidelity first invested in the add-on round of funding in December, Lyft said.)

Lyft didn’t disclose any plans for the new money, but noted that it recently launched a new passenger app, and is working with Ontario, Canada-based automotive supplier Magna on autonomous vehicle technology. Last year, the company said it doubled the number of rides it gave compared to 2016, and that its service is available to 95 percent of the U.S. population.

Lyft has been growing, including internationally in cities such as Toronto, and the company said in May that it had 35 percent of the U.S. market share, according to news reports. Even so, the company still remains far smaller than its main competitor, Uber, especially in terms of valuation. Research firm CB Insights says Uber’s valuation is $68 billion, the largest so-called unicorn company (a privately held firm with a valuation over $1 billion).

Senator Investment Group also participated in the new funding round for Lyft.

David Holley is Xconomy's national correspondent based in Austin, TX. You can reach him at dholley@xconomy.com Follow @xconholley